Early Years Foundation Stage

At Blundeston CEVCP School, we are very proud of our Early Years Foundation Stage. We understand the importance of a high quality early years education. We work closely with parents, carers and families and other schools and agencies to ensure our children flourish and to achieve excellence in each of the four EYFS overarching themes:-

A Unique Child

We build on what our children already know, can do and their interests;

We celebrate our children’s successes, both at home and at school;

We acknowledge, and respond to, the individuality of each child.

Positive Relationships

We foster positive relationships between the adults and the children in the setting, as well as parents, supported by the school’s outstanding Christian ethos;

Our children work well together and support each other to be independent in their play and learning;

We begin to develop our children’s understanding of British values, such as right and wrong, being respectful, working together and fairness.

Enabling Environments

We provide a rich and stimulating learning environment, providing opportunities for learning both indoors and outdoors that supports all areas of learning.

Learning and Development

We offer opportunities for learning through a play-based approach. This has a range of starting points and content that matches the needs of each individual child;

Our curriculum is broad and balanced;

We promote and reinforce positive behaviour;

We instil a love of learning where children are inspired.

Our skilled practitioners and our exciting curriculum support our children to develop their skills in the three characteristics of effective learning:-

Playing and exploring – engagement (finding out and exploring, playing with what they know, being willing to ‘have a go’). This links to our Blundeston values of resilience, teamwork and courage.

Active learning – motivation (being involved and concentrating, keeping trying, enjoying achieving what they set out to do). This links to our Blundeston values of resilience, teamwork and independence.

Creating and thinking critically – thinking (having their own ideas, making links, choosing ways to do things). This links to our Blundeston values of independence and courage.

Communication and language (this involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment, to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations).

Personal, social and emotional development (this involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves and others, to form positive relationships and develop respect for others, to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings, to understand appropriate behaviour in groups and to have confidence in their own abilities).

Physical development (this involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive and to develop their co-ordination, control and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity and to make healthy choices in relation to food).

The 4 specific areas are:-

Literacy (this involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems and other written materials) to ignite their interest).

Mathematics (this involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems and to describe shapes, spaces and measures).

Understanding the world (this involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment).

Expressive arts and design (this involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role play and design and technology).

Our rich curriculum ensures that children are given high quality opportunities in each area of learning throughout the day and in different contexts.

We use Tapestry to record each child's learning journey, their achievements and assessments against the 17 EYFS Early Learning Goals.

At the end of their Reception year, each child will be awarded either Emerging, Expected or Exceeding for each Early Learning Goal. A child will achieve a "Good Level of Development" if they achieve the expected level in the 3 prime areas of learning as well as in Literacy and Mathematics.

We plan an objective-led curriculum for our continuous provision, supported by our knowledge of the children through talking and listening to them and making careful observations. These enable us to plan the next steps for each child.